2 hours
4 fifteen minute sessions
1 hour work time
Double circle share with inputting on the iPad
Purchasing statement- come from Mary with some background info about how much we have to spend and how we are deciding (Kiley will talk with Mary)
Bring your own device issues to think about:
Physical security/Internet security
Liability issues
Management
Equity
Logistics / battery
Cross platform
Staff comfort
January 7, 2011
We took time to discuss our presentation plans for the 2/7/11 staff meeting. We will present some purchasing options and gather open-ended comments/questions about each option. Kelli will develop the worksheet with the options laid out and Lynn/Britta will develop the presentation portion of the staff meeting. We will have 30 min. on 2/7/11.
Andy updated us on the iPads. They can now print. Yeah! He will also group apps into folders. We will do an "update" training on the iPads on 1/25/11 during our mini Tech Demo time.
November 12 & November 19, 2010
These are combined notes from the two meetings since they were so close together.
On Friday, Nov. 12 staff trained in SMART. They had one hour of "play" time or free lab/classroom work time in Notebook. In the opposite hour they were in a formal training with a Tierney rep. Some of the ideas included how to record math mini-lessons to share with parents on the school webpage, how to insert one's own recorded sound (like a reading of the chart) in a Notebook file, exploring the lesson activity toolkit to become more familiar with the interactive elements available, and many more.
The Tech Committee then spent about an hour with Zach from Tierney learning how to use the SMART Response System we are borrowing through the end of December. Britta and Kelli have tried the system with kids so far.
We decided:
We are going to loosen up tech tips and not just do them on Tuesday. We will do them whenever one presents itself. At the time we still had the tech demos on the staff meeting calendar so we were going to substitute that, but now that the meeting calendar was revised, we will have to revisit with the leads.
We are going to have sign-out calendars for the Flip Cameras online.
We will house the digital video cameras in the front office so people can actually find and use them.
Britta would send out (and did send out) a reminder to staff to reserve the iPads on the online calendar. Kelli is to remove the sign-out sheets from the office so people aren't confused about that.
On the 19th we spent a good deal of time discussing Lynn & Kelli's visit to Oak-Land Jr. High, where their Tech. Coordinator graciously spent TWO HOURS answering their questions and showing them around the school. Some of the highlights that apply to us:
If we get any laptops (for staff or students), we must be sure to get a protection plan.
We must plan in our purchasing for our replacement strategy. This was part of what did in their laptop program - not enough $$ to replace all at once.
Stillwater secondary schools have a procedure in place for kids to bring family-owned devices to school.
The power of 1:1 is amazing.
As far as introducing PC platform, his thought is that over time, Mac v. PC evens out cost-wise.
They use Bretford carts for their MacBooks (after much research decided these were the best).
Most kids pick up what they need in order to do the work. As far as what more we could do to prepare them, they kind of "get it" already . . . keyboarding not much of an issue because once they need to do it, they do it.
Their mobile carts are assigned and housed in "zones." Perhaps that is something for us to think about, too - by hoods?
Does this work now?
They had very little hardware damage on their student laptops during the life of their 1:1 program.
And so much more.
Then we took some time to chat about what could be some ideas for us as we move forward - how to structure our plan, what are some purchasing ideas.
We will meet on December 16 from 4-5 to work on our plan for data gathering.
Britta, Lynn, Janet and Kelli each attend one day of TIES conference on Dec. 6 or 7. Andy may as well.
October 15, 2010 Awesome meeting! Super productive.
1.We reviewed the Purchasing Plan Timeline. Will stick with it for now and adjust as needed later. 2. We (roughly) planned out our Nov. 23 staff meeting to present hardware information for staff.
Lynn & Kelli will make a short video of kids talking about what piece of technology would help them learn at school. We will have each teacher put a question on their MM chart and report the results to us: "What piece of technology would most help you learn at school?" or something similar. We can use the responses in later purchasing plan development. We can also then approach kids to film their answers for the staff meeting. We will try to post this to watch before the next meeting
We will talk about several possibilities (and non-possibilities, like hard-wired labs in each hood). Possibilities include (not limited to, just a start of a list):
1:1 laptops for 4-6 students
Mobile labs
Mobile device labs (like current iPad labs)
SMART Response system - Tierney Brothers will loan sets for piloting. Kelli will find out how many/how long/what kinds. Interested parties for pilot were Kelli, Lynn, maybe Britta in conjunction with another teammate (she will investigate), Kelli will talk to some primary people (Janet? Linda D.?)
Desktop labs/desktops in classrooms (status quo)
3. We planned out the JH/MS visits. Each team should aim to complete the visit before the next Tech Committee meeting. Each team will plan their own coverage if absent - can use our sub hours (we have three days), or can arrange coverage if it is a more minimal time commitment.
Britta/Ginny/(another staff member) to Lake MS
Kelli/Lynn to Oak-Land
Janet/Paul to Skyview (Janet let me know if you want to go somewhere else, we just plugged you in)
Watch your e-mail for the contact info. Make sure the person is the tech curriculum person rather than the tech support person (or maybe they are both in some schools). We will ask the following questions:
What do you wish our 6th/7th graders knew how to do with technology in order to reach their goals?
How much do they use technology in Jr. High?
How often (daily? less?)
Are they usually typing their assignments?
What tech projects are they doing?
What kind of tech using in specialized areas, especially art?
What hardware do they have available?
Anecdotally, how are our kids doing with respect to kids from other elementaries (tech-wise)?
Take a flip camera along. Try to find out ahead of time about some former Valley kids who might be 7th/8th graders (talk to 4-6 teachers). See if you can contact these kids before the visit to arrange to interview them about these questions as well. If not, maybe the school will let you talk with some students the day of the visit.
4. Gaggle. We will turn texting back on - if some teacher wants to use it, they can, but if it's not set up, kids won't be able to do damage with it. Ginny shared some research supporting that MS age kids are doing muuuuuuch more texting than e-mailing (in a month, thousands of texts compared to a handful of e-mails.). So if a teacher wants to use it, they can. We will send out these settings to intermediate teachers.
5. Tierney training for November. Ran out of time. Kelli will develop a list and send out.
September 17, 2010 1. Hardware 2. iPad situation- how should they be checked out? Where should they be stored? Do you need to take them all at once? 3. Decide on TTT and sign up for them.
Hardware purchase Approx. $50,000 from budget and Gala money.
Should we involve the SDSC? Help make the decision, help verify we followed the right process to gather info, or leave them out?
Survey all stakeholders to gain info about what they are interested in and what they want. We don't want to ask if they really a don't have a say in what we do. So do we ask the parents? Students?
What are JR high kids doing? Take some field trips to schools to see what they are doing. Kelli has a contact at Oakland. Paul can also find out who they tech people are at both Lake and Skyview. Consider shadowing in some classes for part of a day. interest in seeing how Oakland is managing in the post laptop era.
Check out system for the Flip camera.
Start writing surveys now so we can write them well. Schedule a time to make staff take the survey.
Meet to write a survey- Kelli will draft a survey and then pass it along to the other team members.
iPad. How to allow people time to get used to it, allow over night check out. What to you do when someone forgets it and then you are out one or more iPads.
Meet about ipads- after school? Skype with Janet. 27th of September, 4-5 Monday. Discuss the logistics of using the ipads.
TTT items- September -smart board ideas first
Janet will ask about if we can do TTT at staff meetings
February 26, 2010
Monday, April 12 p.m. will be continuum work. Lynn, Britta, Ginny, Kelli, Laura will attend and we will invite Linda Dobbs and Lisa.
After school on April 6 we will meet to set up a plan for a Delicious list. Britta, Lynn, Kelli and anyone else who wants to attend is welcome. We watched a video about Delicious and discussed a little bit about how it could work for Valley. Please watch it if you missed the meeting. http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english
Kelli will be sending out best practices readings to discuss at the April 9 meeting. Watch for your reading and task to arrive via e-mail.
Lynn will make a brief survey of some type about Tuesday Tech Tips.
Please look at the electronic portfolio possibility to pilot next year. http://grover.concordia.ca/epearl/demo/public/and use the username "jackie" and the password "123." This is program out of Quebec and Andy has already set it up on our server, so on the technical side, it is definitely a possibility, plus it is free (can you believe it?!). Anyone who wants to take some time to investigate other portfolio possibilities, feel free. Some of the readings for the 9th will be around electronic portfolios.
January 8, 2010
We shared the things we learned from the TIES conference to start so others could head to other meetings. Everyone was excited about the new ideas.
We will share the ideas we have whole staff (Mary will check availability). to spark interest. Those of the people who went to the TIES conference will share their ideas.
The continuum revision has been started. On Jan. 19th, from 4 -5 pm we will meet again.
We will double check the SMART policy to see if families can download the software at home for free. Andy will check the policy to see what we can do.
December 4, 2009
Tech Training
We are going to do a weekly tech tip. We signed up for them. Here is the list. We need two more people to do a tip in March.
1/4/10 - Lynn
1/11/10 - Kelli
1/18/10 - Britta
1/25/10 - Laura
2/1/10 - Lynn
2/8/10 - Andy
2/15/10 - Paul
2/22/10 - Laura
3/1/10 - Kelli
3/8/10 - Cindy
3/15/10- Cindy
3/22/10 - Andy
Updates
Mary has contacted Jessica about the teacher page training.
TIES conference - we have a few interested people. We need to work out the details but Mary will figure it out.
We went to Lab B to prep for the standards study day. See "Continuum Revision" page.
November 5, 2009
Standards
Schedule a half day to start looking at the standards revision.
December 8th noon to 4 work day. Lynn, Laura, Britta, Kelli and Janet will get subs for the day.
Statement on the Filter
Impacts instruction! Preventing use of websites that could be useful educational tools.
Andy created bypass accounts on the filter for each site. His meeting with Kristine Carr was rescheduled. We all will cross our finger that Kristine agrees.
Flip Camera
Grants are due Nov.18th. Kelli has researched the pricing (roughly $1500). We need someone to write the grant. Janet and Linda agreed to work on the grant together. We may have to look into buying additional rechargeble battery packs. This would mean you must wait for the camera to charge! No replacing the packs with the batteries. Possible- if team looses any part of the camera, (battery pack, extension cords,) they will use PTA money to replace.
Student Email
Parent concerned with their kid getting outside emails with inappropriate content.
We talked about the safety concerns. B is going to continue to pilot Gaggle over break to see what happens.
Students will be reminded that they are only allowed to use email addresses in the Gaggle network. They also need to be reminded that they are only allowed to send emails to their teachers.
We are still trying to figure out what to do!!!
*October 2, 2009
Teacher Page Training
Lynn sent an email to Mary about changing the date and she changed it so we can host the website training!
SMART Training
9-28 New Board users- Britta shared that it was informative
10-5 Will be the training for those who have had boards.
SMART Sub Committee
Proposed forming a sub committee based on members of the tech committee to facilitate Smart training and idea sharing. Finding out when people are using their boards and how they are using them. Ginny shared an informal gathering idea and Kelli, Lynn and Britta said they would be on the committee. Kelli will send an email out to staff to find more interested people.
Student Email
We discussed the history of student email at VCCS. Talked about the Gaggle.net idea and finding more random usernames for the students. Neighborhood B 4-6, and perhaps Spanish Club will pilot the free version of Gaggle to gather info for grant writing next year. We also put out writing a grant for Flip cameras this year.
September 2009 Meeting Notes Last year- Series of mini training sessions before school to train people. Surveyed staff to see where they use technology and which content area they use it. Looked at ISTE standards to guide our continuum.
Hopes and Dreams for this year.
We are in Phase I, trying to do program research and evaluation.
Draft a position about the filter and the restraints it places on our teaching.
Get to know ISTE standards for students/teachers
Real life ideas for using technology in the classroom daily
SMART training before the new year
Kelli's secret ideas about SMART Boards
To Do:
Set dates for the whole year- brainstorm topics for the year-
Topic Ideas:
Smart Boards
Web 2.0 tools (Wordle, Wikispaces, Voice Thread..)
Monday (staff training)
2 hours
4 fifteen minute sessions
1 hour work time
Double circle share with inputting on the iPad
Purchasing statement- come from Mary with some background info about how much we have to spend and how we are deciding (Kiley will talk with Mary)
Bring your own device issues to think about:
Physical security/Internet security
Liability issues
Management
Equity
Logistics / battery
Cross platform
Staff comfort
January 7, 2011
We took time to discuss our presentation plans for the 2/7/11 staff meeting. We will present some purchasing options and gather open-ended comments/questions about each option. Kelli will develop the worksheet with the options laid out and Lynn/Britta will develop the presentation portion of the staff meeting. We will have 30 min. on 2/7/11.
Andy updated us on the iPads. They can now print. Yeah! He will also group apps into folders. We will do an "update" training on the iPads on 1/25/11 during our mini Tech Demo time.
November 12 & November 19, 2010
These are combined notes from the two meetings since they were so close together.
On Friday, Nov. 12 staff trained in SMART. They had one hour of "play" time or free lab/classroom work time in Notebook. In the opposite hour they were in a formal training with a Tierney rep. Some of the ideas included how to record math mini-lessons to share with parents on the school webpage, how to insert one's own recorded sound (like a reading of the chart) in a Notebook file, exploring the lesson activity toolkit to become more familiar with the interactive elements available, and many more.
The Tech Committee then spent about an hour with Zach from Tierney learning how to use the SMART Response System we are borrowing through the end of December. Britta and Kelli have tried the system with kids so far.
We decided:
On the 19th we spent a good deal of time discussing Lynn & Kelli's visit to Oak-Land Jr. High, where their Tech. Coordinator graciously spent TWO HOURS answering their questions and showing them around the school. Some of the highlights that apply to us:
Does this work now?
Then we took some time to chat about what could be some ideas for us as we move forward - how to structure our plan, what are some purchasing ideas.
We will meet on December 16 from 4-5 to work on our plan for data gathering.
Britta, Lynn, Janet and Kelli each attend one day of TIES conference on Dec. 6 or 7. Andy may as well.
October 15, 2010
Awesome meeting! Super productive.
1. We reviewed the Purchasing Plan Timeline. Will stick with it for now and adjust as needed later.
2. We (roughly) planned out our Nov. 23 staff meeting to present hardware information for staff.
Lynn & Kelli will make a short video of kids talking about what piece of technology would help them learn at school. We will have each teacher put a question on their MM chart and report the results to us: "What piece of technology would most help you learn at school?" or something similar. We can use the responses in later purchasing plan development. We can also then approach kids to film their answers for the staff meeting. We will try to post this to watch before the next meeting
We will talk about several possibilities (and non-possibilities, like hard-wired labs in each hood). Possibilities include (not limited to, just a start of a list):
3. We planned out the JH/MS visits. Each team should aim to complete the visit before the next Tech Committee meeting. Each team will plan their own coverage if absent - can use our sub hours (we have three days), or can arrange coverage if it is a more minimal time commitment.
Watch your e-mail for the contact info. Make sure the person is the tech curriculum person rather than the tech support person (or maybe they are both in some schools). We will ask the following questions:
4. Gaggle. We will turn texting back on - if some teacher wants to use it, they can, but if it's not set up, kids won't be able to do damage with it. Ginny shared some research supporting that MS age kids are doing muuuuuuch more texting than e-mailing (in a month, thousands of texts compared to a handful of e-mails.). So if a teacher wants to use it, they can. We will send out these settings to intermediate teachers.
5. Tierney training for November. Ran out of time. Kelli will develop a list and send out.
September 17, 2010
1. Hardware
2. iPad situation- how should they be checked out? Where should they be stored? Do you need to take them all at once?
3. Decide on TTT and sign up for them.
Hardware purchase
Approx. $50,000 from budget and Gala money.
Should we involve the SDSC? Help make the decision, help verify we followed the right process to gather info, or leave them out?
Survey all stakeholders to gain info about what they are interested in and what they want. We don't want to ask if they really a don't have a say in what we do. So do we ask the parents? Students?
What are JR high kids doing? Take some field trips to schools to see what they are doing. Kelli has a contact at Oakland. Paul can also find out who they tech people are at both Lake and Skyview. Consider shadowing in some classes for part of a day. interest in seeing how Oakland is managing in the post laptop era.
Check out system for the Flip camera.
Start writing surveys now so we can write them well. Schedule a time to make staff take the survey.
Meet to write a survey- Kelli will draft a survey and then pass it along to the other team members.
iPad. How to allow people time to get used to it, allow over night check out. What to you do when someone forgets it and then you are out one or more iPads.
Meet about ipads- after school? Skype with Janet. 27th of September, 4-5
Monday. Discuss the logistics of using the ipads.
TTT items- September -smart board ideas first
Janet will ask about if we can do TTT at staff meetings
February 26, 2010
Monday, April 12 p.m. will be continuum work. Lynn, Britta, Ginny, Kelli, Laura will attend and we will invite Linda Dobbs and Lisa.
After school on April 6 we will meet to set up a plan for a Delicious list. Britta, Lynn, Kelli and anyone else who wants to attend is welcome. We watched a video about Delicious and discussed a little bit about how it could work for Valley. Please watch it if you missed the meeting. http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english
Kelli will be sending out best practices readings to discuss at the April 9 meeting. Watch for your reading and task to arrive via e-mail.
Lynn will make a brief survey of some type about Tuesday Tech Tips.
Please look at the electronic portfolio possibility to pilot next year. http://grover.concordia.ca/epearl/demo/public/and use the username "jackie" and the password "123." This is program out of Quebec and Andy has already set it up on our server, so on the technical side, it is definitely a possibility, plus it is free (can you believe it?!). Anyone who wants to take some time to investigate other portfolio possibilities, feel free. Some of the readings for the 9th will be around electronic portfolios.
January 8, 2010
We shared the things we learned from the TIES conference to start so others could head to other meetings. Everyone was excited about the new ideas.
We will share the ideas we have whole staff (Mary will check availability). to spark interest. Those of the people who went to the TIES conference will share their ideas.
The continuum revision has been started. On Jan. 19th, from 4 -5 pm we will meet again.
We will double check the SMART policy to see if families can download the software at home for free. Andy will check the policy to see what we can do.
December 4, 2009
Tech Training
We are going to do a weekly tech tip. We signed up for them. Here is the list. We need two more people to do a tip in March.
1/4/10 - Lynn
1/11/10 - Kelli
1/18/10 - Britta
1/25/10 - Laura
2/1/10 - Lynn
2/8/10 - Andy
2/15/10 - Paul
2/22/10 - Laura
3/1/10 - Kelli
3/8/10 - Cindy
3/15/10- Cindy
3/22/10 - Andy
Updates
Mary has contacted Jessica about the teacher page training.
TIES conference - we have a few interested people. We need to work out the details but Mary will figure it out.
We went to Lab B to prep for the standards study day. See "Continuum Revision" page.
November 5, 2009
Standards
Schedule a half day to start looking at the standards revision.
December 8th noon to 4 work day. Lynn, Laura, Britta, Kelli and Janet will get subs for the day.
Statement on the Filter
Impacts instruction! Preventing use of websites that could be useful educational tools.
Andy created bypass accounts on the filter for each site. His meeting with Kristine Carr was rescheduled. We all will cross our finger that Kristine agrees.
Flip Camera
Grants are due Nov.18th. Kelli has researched the pricing (roughly $1500). We need someone to write the grant. Janet and Linda agreed to work on the grant together. We may have to look into buying additional rechargeble battery packs. This would mean you must wait for the camera to charge! No replacing the packs with the batteries. Possible- if team looses any part of the camera, (battery pack, extension cords,) they will use PTA money to replace.
Student Email
Parent concerned with their kid getting outside emails with inappropriate content.
We talked about the safety concerns. B is going to continue to pilot Gaggle over break to see what happens.
Students will be reminded that they are only allowed to use email addresses in the Gaggle network. They also need to be reminded that they are only allowed to send emails to their teachers.
We are still trying to figure out what to do!!!
*October 2, 2009
Teacher Page Training
Lynn sent an email to Mary about changing the date and she changed it so we can host the website training!
SMART Training
9-28 New Board users- Britta shared that it was informative
10-5 Will be the training for those who have had boards.
SMART Sub Committee
Proposed forming a sub committee based on members of the tech committee to facilitate Smart training and idea sharing. Finding out when people are using their boards and how they are using them. Ginny shared an informal gathering idea and Kelli, Lynn and Britta said they would be on the committee. Kelli will send an email out to staff to find more interested people.
Student Email
We discussed the history of student email at VCCS. Talked about the Gaggle.net idea and finding more random usernames for the students. Neighborhood B 4-6, and perhaps Spanish Club will pilot the free version of Gaggle to gather info for grant writing next year. We also put out writing a grant for Flip cameras this year.
September 2009 Meeting Notes
Last year- Series of mini training sessions before school to train people. Surveyed staff to see where they use technology and which content area they use it. Looked at ISTE standards to guide our continuum.
Hopes and Dreams for this year.
To Do:
Set dates for the whole year- brainstorm topics for the year-
Topic Ideas: